Friday, June 17, 2011

Morgen (2010)

Nelu, a man in his forties, lives in Salonta, a small town on the border. He has a simple life, fishing at dawn, then work, and finally home with
his wife. One morning, Nelu finds something different in
the river; a Turkish man trying to cross the border. Not able to
communicate verbally, the two men somehow understand each other. Nelu takes the stranger to the farmhouse, gives him some dry clothes,
food and shelter and promises he will
help him cross the border tomorrow...

Morgen is the debut feature film from Romanian director Marian Crisan, winner of the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for Megatron. It premiered at the 2010 Locarno Film Festival where it was awarded the Special Jury Prize. Morgen is the German word for morning or tomorrow.

Set in a small town on the Romanian-Hungarian border, Morgen deals with the problem of illegal immigrants in Europe. While out fishing one morning, Nelu, a simple man who works as a security guard at the local supermarket finds Behran, a Turkish man trying to make his way to his family in Germany, hiding in the river and takes him in. The two men can not understand each others language, and to emphasize this effect, no subtitles are provided for Behran's Turkish dialog. Yet Nelu comes to understand Behran's quest and using the only German word he knows morgen, he tells him he will try to help him in the morning.

Told mostly in a light and quirky humorous manner, with several jabs at the rigidity and ridiculousness of strict enforcement of some of the laws today, it is a charming tale of friendship and goodwill to strangers done in the style of the Romanian New Wave.

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